• Progress in Superconductivity
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.139-145
• /
• 2012

Electric activity of cardiac muscles generates magnetic fields. Magnetocardiography (or MCG) technology, measuring these magnetic signals, can provide useful information for the diagnosis of heart diseases. It is already about 40 years ago that the first measurement of MCG signals was done by D. Cohen using SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device) sensor inside a magnetically shielded room. In the early period of MCG history, bulky point-contact RF-SQUID was used as the magnetic sensor. Thanks to the development of Nb-based Josephson junction technology in mid 1980s and new design of tightly-coupled DC-SQUID, low-noise SQUID sensors could be developed in late 1980s. In around 1990, several groups developed multi-channel MCG systems and started clinical study. However, it is quite recent years that the true usefulness of MCG was verified in clinical practice, for example, in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease. For the practical MCG system, technical elements of MCG system should be optimized in terms of performance, fabrication cost and operation cost. In this review, development history, technical issue, and future development direction of MCG technology are described.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.171-182
• /
• 2002

The differential electromagnetic transducer for IME(implantable middle ear) system, which have two small permanent magnets glued with the same pole facing each other in the coil, has high vibration efficiency and does not influenced by external magnetic field. In this paper, using finite element method, highly efficient structure of the transducer was proposed and vibration force of the transducer was calculated by electromagnetic theory. And the necessary vibration force of transducer to transmit the sound signal to inner ear when the transducer is attached at stapes was calculated and the design parameters of the transducer were investigated. Using the parameters, the differential electromagnetic transducer was manufactured in small size to implant in confined human middle ear. And it was examined by unloaded and loaded vibration experiment using temporal bone sampled from cadaver.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics
• /
• v.17 no.5
• /
• pp.15-21
• /
• 1980

An engine control system in which the conventional mechanical ignition system is studied. The contact point of the breaker is replaced by the contactless magnetic pick up sensor from which the information of the speed and the position of the crankshaft is extracted , and further an electronic High Energy Ignitim System Is designed, implemented and tested . The High Energy Igniticwl System increases the secondary spark voltage of the ignition coil from the conventional 10000~15000 volts to the 30000~40000 volts resulting in improving the combustion efficiency. Also, instead of the conventional advimce mechanism forigniliontiming control, a microprocessorbased timinng mechanisn is installed to determine the ignition timing data in response to the engine rpm and the intake manifold vacuum.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.7 no.5
• /
• pp.379-392
• /
• 2011

This paper presents a multi-functional system, consisting of a magnetorheological (MR) damper and an electromagnetic induction (EMI) device, and its applications in stay cables. The proposed system is capable of offering multiple functions: (1) mitigating excessive vibrations of cables, (2) estimating cable tension, and (3) harvesting energy for wireless sensors used health monitoring of cable-stayed bridges. In the proposed system, the EMI device, consisting of permanent magnets and a solenoid coil, can converts vibration energy into electrical energy (i.e., induced emf); hence, it acts as an energy harvesting system. Moreover, the cable tension can be estimated by using the emf signals obtained from the EMI device. In addition, the MR damper, whose damping property is controlled by the harvested energy from the EMI device, can effectively reduce excessive cable vibrations. In this study, the multi-functionality of the proposed system is experimentally evaluated by conducting a shaking table test as well as a full-scale stay cable in a laboratory setting. In the shaking table experiment, the energy harvesting capability of the EMI device for wireless sensor nodes is investigated. The performance on the cable tension estimation and the vibration mitigation are evaluated using the full-scale cable test setup. The test results show that the proposed system can sufficiently generate and store the electricity for operating a wireless sensor node twice per day, significantly alleviate vibration of a stay cable (by providing about 20% larger damping compared to the passive optimal case), and estimate the cable tension accurately within a 2.5% error.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
• /
• v.40 no.3
• /
• pp.181-188
• /
• 2003

In this paper, we introduce a magnetic noise shielding method to reduce the noise effects in permanent magnet based MRI systems. Through FEM electromagnetic analyses, we have shown that the magnetic noise component parallel to the main magnetic field is the major component that makes various artifacts in the images obtained with a permanent magnet based MRI. Based on the FEM analyses, we have developed an active magnetic noise shielding system composed of a magnetic field sensor, compensation coils, and a coil driving system. The shielding system has shown a noise rejection ratio of about 30dB at the frequency below several Hz. We have experimentally verified that the shielding system greatly improves the image quality in a 0.3 Tesla MRI system.

• Journal of Magnetics
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.330-339
• /
• 2016

A magnetic field sensing system with a single primary sensor and multiple reference sensors deployed locally and orthogonally, was proposed for downlink signal reception and interference cancelling for Through-the-Earth Communication (TEC). This paper mathematically analyzes a design optimization process for a search coil magnetometer (SCM), and applies that process to minimize the bandwidth of the primary SCM for TEC signal reception and the volume of reference SCMs for multiple distributions. The primary SCM achieves a 3-dB bandwidth of 7 Hz, a sensitivity threshold of 120 fT/${\surd}$Hz, and a volume of $2.32{\times}10^{-4}m^3$. The entire sensing system volume is as small as $10^{-2}m^3$. Experiments with interference from industrial frequency harmonics demonstrated an average of 36 dB and 18 dB improvements in signal-to-interference ratio and signal-to-interference plus noise ratio, respectively, using multichannel recursive-least-squares algorithm. Thus, the proposed sensing system can reduce the interference effectively and allows reliable downlink signal reception.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.27 no.2
• /
• pp.99-104
• /
• 2018

A micro electromagnetic actuator with high vibration efficiency is proposed for use in an implantable hearing device. The actuator, which can be implanted in the middle ear, consists of membranes based on the stainless steel 304 (SUS-304), and other components. In conventional actuators, in which a thick membrane and a silicone elastomer are used, the size reduction was difficult. In order to miniaturize the size of the actuator, it is necessary to reduce the size of the actuation potion that generates the driving force, resulting in reduction of the electromagnetic force. In this paper, the electromagnetic actuator is further miniaturized by the metal membrane and the vibration amplitude is also optimized. The actuator designed according to the simulation results was fabricated by using micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology. In particular, a $20{\mu}m$ thick metal membrane was fabricated using the erosion process, which reduced the length of the actuator by more than $400{\mu}m$. In the experiments, the vibration displacement characteristics of the optimized actuator were above 400 nm within the range of 0.1 to 1 kHz when a current of $1mA_{rms}$ was applied to the coil.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
• /
• v.54 no.12
• /
• pp.689-697
• /
• 2005

In this paper, an application of a decentralized $H_{\infty}$ controller(DHC) to multiple controlled-permanent magnet(CMAG) magnetic levitation(Maglev) systems is presented. The designed DHC using two Riccati equations iteratively has simpler structure and needs less computational loads than conventional centralized $H_{\infty}$ controller. A target plant is a hybrid-type CMAG system with permanent magnet and coil, and its mathematical model is firstly derived to design the DHC. To implement the designed algorithm, a real Maglev vehicle system including digital controller, chopper, sensor, etc., is manufactured. To compare the performances of the DHC method with an observer-based state feedback control(OSFC), the input tracking and disturbance rejection characteristics are experimentally tested. As performance indices(PI), integral of squared error(ISE), integral of absolute error(IAE), integral of time multiplied by absolute error(ITAE) and integral of time multiplied by squared error(ITSE) are used. From the experimental results, it can be seen that the input tracking and disturbance rejection performances of the DHC are better than those of the conventional controller.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.412-416
• /
• 2006

A magnetic field oscillator was designed and made. The oscillator was installed around a water pipe and radiated into water which was provided for vegetables cultivation. The oscillator was made with a helmholtz coil and installed a magnetic field sensor inside. The class E amplifier circuit with frequency variance was also used. Hydroponic and soil cultural methods were used for cultivation of lettuce and chinese cabbage with magnetic field water and without. Vitamin C ingredients in the lettuce and chinese cabbage which were grown with magnetic field water were 2.8 times and 1.2 times higher than without the magnetic water. Moreover, the growth acceleration effect of vegetables was shown in lettuce cultivated with the magnetic field water.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.110-113
• /
• 2004

We have designed and fabricated the YBCO single layer directly-coupled SQUID magnetometers for the purpose of magnetocardiography in a magnetically disturbed environment. The SQUID magnetometers were designed three different types of pickup coil such as solid type, PL type I and PL type II for further stable fluxed-locked-loop operation without magnetic shielding. Magnetometer was fabricated with a single layer YBCO thin film deposited on STO(100) bicrystal substrate with misorientation angle of $30^{\circ}$. We have achieved a magnetic field noise BN of 30 fT/$Hz^{1/2}$ at 100 Hz, and less than 70 fT/$Hz^{1/2}$ at 1 Hz. The PL type II SQUIDs have exhibited the most stable fluxed-locked-loop operation in a magnetically unshielded environment.